I have dealt extensively with the Japanese...They are Borg.. Really.. They have a hive mentality. They are very much different than we are ( less so these days of course).They may as well be from another planet.

And there are other people who have dealt extensively with Japanese who will say you are wrong. From my own experience, I would agree with them.

The etiqueete is very much different.

Saving face is central to their ethos and is extreme. I have stories about how crazy they over this.

They have an exaggerated and extreme group mentality. They have little use for Western individualism. Your membership and enthusiastic participation is central to you life.

Their hierarchical structure has a totally different patten. .Many jobs expect you to stay at work until very late and then go get a drink..not optional. There is a problem in Japan with people dropping from exhaustion.

I had a good friend who worked in Japan for 10 years. He was very bitter about his experience. He said they will always be polite to you but they will never ever ever ever accept you.

My Buddhist teacher was an American and a professional translator of ancient Japanese Buddhists documents. Also bitter about his dealings with them. I was invited to go there several times by my group, all expenses paid ..which is very nice. But my American teacher told me they wanted to just "walk the dog"..They wanted to show off their American follower which helps to salve their feelings of inferiority to us.

oh and when you talk about WW2 with them you may discover that all they care about is Hiroshima. They make it sound like we started the War by dropping the bomb. Their consciousness begins and ends with them getting nuked.

Hey, better to be polite and not accept you than to be rude and ignorant and not accept you.

So, the Japanese have a different culture and different sensibilities. Not every culture can be as cool and accepting and warm and wonderful as "western" culture . This does not make them "Borg" (since they don't, apparently according to your friend, accept or assimilate others), it does not make them inhuman, and it is no reason to criticize, much less demonize them in any way, shape, or form.

Try to imagine how Americans might feel about WW2 if *we* had been nuked....twice. I guess we might be a little sensitive about it.

What seems clear to me from what you write is that you don't really understand Japanese culture at any deep level. Not that there's any need or reason for you to if you don't want to.

I, too, have a friend who spent many years in Japan, first to learn the language, and then ended up working there for quite a long time. Her experience, once she made the effort to learn about Japanese culture, etc, was totally different, in a very positive way, from what you and your friend describe. Which goes to show how careful we must be about making generalizations about whole cultures and peoples.

They are Borg because they have a Group Mentality..

They take no responsibility for WW2. All many of them are conscious of is Hiroshima, which was well justified IMHO.

Thanks for sharing your own opinions, which pretty much dehumanize a whole people and culture.

Thank God we have you stalking me and ready to put things right !

Keep standing up for what is right. Terrific job.. Thanks again

If replying to your posts in multiple threads or fora equals "stalking" you, or if you think I've violated any of the rules of this board, I invite you to report me to the mods and justify your accusation. Yes, I do attempt to stand up for what is right. Sorry that's a problem for you.

« Last Edit: April 24, 2013, 03:47:14 PM by J Michael »

Logged

"May Thy Cross, O Lord, in which I seek refuge, be for me a bridge across the great river of fire. May I pass along it to the habitation of life." ~St. Ephraim the Syrian

'The Cause of Japan' by Togo Shigenori is a book I have long wanted but never got aroound to reading.

"Togo was Foreign Minister at the time of Pearl Harbor and, after a period of political eclipse, resumed this post to speed Japan's peace negotiations; he is therefor more familiar than anyone else with the underlying policies of his country at two critical points. Shortly before his death in an American military hospital (he was then serving a twenty year sentence on charges of ""conspiracy to wage aggressive war"") Togo put into his family's safekeeping elaborate notes on his youth (not included here) and his service in the Konoe and Suzuki cabinets. The notes, pedantic and impersonal, not only exonerate Togo himself of any militant designs but place an embarrassing amount of responsibility at the door of the United States. The embargo on petroleum products all but forced Japan into the war: Roosevelt, according to Togo, was fully aware of this fact and, from sources of secret information, knew thoroughly the plans and thinking of the Japanese leaders: the duplicity and delaying tactics in Washington were caused entirely by America. His justification, coupled with the light the book sheds on the power alignments within Japan and the broad diplomatic policies that were followed, is worthy of special interest in terms of history and of importance to the student or expert in Far Eastern affairs; it is newsworthy as a presentation of the japanese grounds for their actions."https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/togo-shigenori/the-cause-of-japan

On a somewhat related note, Japan's kamikaze pilot technique against US ships was extremely affective

If by "affective" you mean "emotional" I guess you're right, but that's a bit vague. But of course you mean effective in which case...

More American ships were lost at Okinawa than at Pearl Harbor

And how many Japanese pilots/ planes were lost at Okinawa, compared with Pearl Harbor?

I don't know.

Well it's pretty important information to get a handle on before declaring whether the tactic was effective.

No. That's only if you assume that losses to the Japanese counted the same as they do to you. That's what you need to get a handle on; you're looking at this from a 'body count POV' which is the same error Americans did in Vietnam

On a somewhat related note, Japan's kamikaze pilot technique against US ships was extremely affective

If by "affective" you mean "emotional" I guess you're right, but that's a bit vague. But of course you mean effective in which case...

More American ships were lost at Okinawa than at Pearl Harbor

And how many Japanese pilots/ planes were lost at Okinawa, compared with Pearl Harbor?

I don't know.

Well it's pretty important information to get a handle on before declaring whether the tactic was effective.

No. That's only if you assume that losses to the Japanese counted the same as they do to you. That's what you need to get a handle on; you're looking at this from a 'body count POV'

I'm not actually. You were the one that said, "they sank more ships, therefore more effective." And again, the question is, was the kamikaze tactic effective? Clearly it was not. It did not accomplish their short-term goals, it did not accomplish their long-term goals.

Logged

"A riddle or the cricket's cryIs to doubt a fit reply." - William Blake

Well, the two are hardly comparable. No American capital ship was lost at Okinawa; the vast majority were landing craft, PT boats, and other small craft. And there were a lot of them to shoot at: the Japanese damaged 482 American vessels of all kinds! By contrast, there were only a hundred vessels of all sorts, including a floating drydock, pontoons and lighters, and a Coast Guard cutter. The engagement at Okinawa, it should also be noted, lasted over a month and a half. The only significant naval engagement saw of force of ten ships (including the Yamato squashed by a fleet that included eleven carriers, never mind the rest of the force.

Japan's strategy had ceased being the gaining of possessions to gaining time.

By inflicting heavy losses they had hoped to weaken America's resolve. This same tactic worked in Vietnam

Well, it hadn't worked yet, so it hardly could serve as a precedent.

And besides, the Japanese had plenty of time to figure out that it was a failing strategy. They inflicted huge casualties at Tarawa (which was arguably not worth taking anyway), and we kept coming. The did it again at Peleliu, and at Tinian, and so forth, and we kept coming. Repeating something that is manifestly failing is the epitome of stupidity.

I'm not actually. You were the one that said, "they sank more ships, therefore more effective." And again, the question is, was the kamikaze tactic effective? Clearly it was not. It did not accomplish their short-term goals, it did not accomplish their long-term goals.

That's right. They sank more ships. They were effective. Their goal was not "Hey, let's hang on to our pilots", but "Hey, lets destroy as much of the enemy as we can." You quibble about how many pilots they lost. I pointed out that pilot loss was not their concern. You point out again pilot loss. Again I note it wasn't their concern.

I also noted why their long-term goals didn't work; and it was nothing to do with this action. It involved two factors; the bomb and, the Soviet Union entering the war. Both of which were not anticipated by the Japanese. But I also note that destroying large amounts of the enemy, regardless of the cost to one's own forces worked in Vietnam.

They were effective insofar as they destroyed more of their enemy - which is the goal in war.

Go tell that to Pyrrhus.

The goal of war needs to be to establish the desired political outcome. Destroying the enemy is but one possible means to that end.

The goal of the war, for Japan, was to establish control over a region of east Asia and the Pacific. The USA was a potential threat due to our presence in the Philippines and the likelihood that we might defend our interests there and elsewhere in the region. Attacking Pearl only made sense under the assumption that we would respond, but they had to force us out of the war right away by making it impossible for us to maintain a military presence in Hawaii. To do this, they had to seize the islands, which is the other reason why the loss at Midway was so devastating to them. But the attack (a) was galvanizing of policy, and (b) raised them from a threat to an enemy. Before, they worried that we might interfere with their plans; after, they guaranteed that we would interfere, unless we were made incapable of doing so. After Midway, they couldn't stop us, and gave us reason to render them incapable of exerting military force. As long as we had the resolve to do so, they were lost; and that they lost at every single step after their initial attacks, giving us confidence of eventual success.

And besides, the Japanese had plenty of time to figure out that it was a failing strategy. They inflicted huge casualties at Tarawa (which was arguably not worth taking anyway), and we kept coming. The did it again at Peleliu, and at Tinian, and so forth, and we kept coming. Repeating something that is manifestly failing is the epitome of stupidity.

So it was stupid for America to keep taking huge losses?

America destroyed (by firebombing) huge swathes of Japanese cities but this didn't bring Japan to surrender - by your logic, this too was stupid.

They were effective insofar as they destroyed more of their enemy - which is the goal in war.

Go tell that to Pyrrhus.

I've already dealt with that. Pyrrhus was not about wasting his own men. Japan and, Vietnam were.

You keep applying western-values and judging the enemy's plans by your values... which as I noted, is why the US lost in Vietnam. They were utterly convinced that they were winning by measuring body-counts.

It seems your posts are simply to keep repeating endlessly your own western values. It's why the US might well lose again if you can't learn from your mistakes.

The goal of the war, for Japan, was to establish control over a region of east Asia and the Pacific. The USA was a potential threat due to our presence in the Philippines and the likelihood that we might defend our interests there and elsewhere in the region. Attacking Pearl only made sense under the assumption that we would respond, but they had to force us out of the war right away by making it impossible for us to maintain a military presence in Hawaii. To do this, they had to seize the islands, which is the other reason why the loss at Midway was so devastating to them. But the attack (a) was galvanizing of policy, and (b) raised them from a threat to an enemy. Before, they worried that we might interfere with their plans; after, they guaranteed that we would interfere, unless we were made incapable of doing so. After Midway, they couldn't stop us, and gave us reason to render them incapable of exerting military force. As long as we had the resolve to do so, they were lost; and that they lost at every single step after their initial attacks, giving us confidence of eventual success.

I don't doubt that the US had resolve. But destroying huge numbers of men could well have made it a case of "Is it really worth it?"

Fortunately the US had the Atomic Bomb. Just as fortunately the Soviet Union entered the war - which to Japan had the effect much the same as that on Germany when the US entered WWI

Suddenly a nation was facing a brand new enemy with millions more men in resources.

I have dealt extensively with the Japanese...They are Borg.. Really.. They have a hive mentality. They are very much different than we are ( less so these days of course).They may as well be from another planet.

And there are other people who have dealt extensively with Japanese who will say you are wrong. From my own experience, I would agree with them.

The etiqueete is very much different.

Saving face is central to their ethos and is extreme. I have stories about how crazy they over this.

They have an exaggerated and extreme group mentality. They have little use for Western individualism. Your membership and enthusiastic participation is central to you life.

Their hierarchical structure has a totally different patten. .Many jobs expect you to stay at work until very late and then go get a drink..not optional. There is a problem in Japan with people dropping from exhaustion.

I had a good friend who worked in Japan for 10 years. He was very bitter about his experience. He said they will always be polite to you but they will never ever ever ever accept you.

My Buddhist teacher was an American and a professional translator of ancient Japanese Buddhists documents. Also bitter about his dealings with them. I was invited to go there several times by my group, all expenses paid ..which is very nice. But my American teacher told me they wanted to just "walk the dog"..They wanted to show off their American follower which helps to salve their feelings of inferiority to us.

oh and when you talk about WW2 with them you may discover that all they care about is Hiroshima. They make it sound like we started the War by dropping the bomb. Their consciousness begins and ends with them getting nuked.

Hey, better to be polite and not accept you than to be rude and ignorant and not accept you.

So, the Japanese have a different culture and different sensibilities. Not every culture can be as cool and accepting and warm and wonderful as "western" culture . This does not make them "Borg" (since they don't, apparently according to your friend, accept or assimilate others), it does not make them inhuman, and it is no reason to criticize, much less demonize them in any way, shape, or form.

Try to imagine how Americans might feel about WW2 if *we* had been nuked....twice. I guess we might be a little sensitive about it.

What seems clear to me from what you write is that you don't really understand Japanese culture at any deep level. Not that there's any need or reason for you to if you don't want to.

I, too, have a friend who spent many years in Japan, first to learn the language, and then ended up working there for quite a long time. Her experience, once she made the effort to learn about Japanese culture, etc, was totally different, in a very positive way, from what you and your friend describe. Which goes to show how careful we must be about making generalizations about whole cultures and peoples.

They are Borg because they have a Group Mentality..

They take no responsibility for WW2. All many of them are conscious of is Hiroshima, which was well justified IMHO.

Thanks for sharing your own opinions, which pretty much dehumanize a whole people and culture.

Thank God we have you stalking me and ready to put things right !

Keep standing up for what is right. Terrific job.. Thanks again

If replying to your posts in multiple threads or fora equals "stalking" you, or if you think I've violated any of the rules of this board, I invite you to report me to the mods and justify your accusation. Yes, I do attempt to stand up for what is right. Sorry that's a problem for you.

I honestly believe that you devote time to looking for any errors I make or exaggerations or hanging statements. You never miss an opportunity to take a shot.. That is not a violation of any forum rule. But you already know that I am sure.

If you can just back off an inch or two once in awhile I would appreciate it. That is not a demand just a request.

Logged

Your idea has been debunked 1000 times already.. Maybe 1001 will be the charm

They sank more ships. They were effective. Their goal was not "Hey, let's hang on to our pilots", but "Hey, lets destroy as much of the enemy as we can." You quibble about how many pilots they lost. I pointed out that pilot loss was not their concern. You point out again pilot loss. Again I note it wasn't their concern

And again you are wrong. No pilots= no one to fly the planes and kill people. It doesn't matter what your resolve is if you have nothing left to throw at the enemy. Japan was trying to exhaust the US with casualties, but they were exhausting themselves much quicker. Most of the kamikaze pilots went into the sea without killing anyone- they would have been better off with conventional tactics. Again, given the huge loss of men and materiel, the results of the kamikaze missions over Okinawa were not worth the resources that went into it.

Logged

"A riddle or the cricket's cryIs to doubt a fit reply." - William Blake

They sank more ships. They were effective. Their goal was not "Hey, let's hang on to our pilots", but "Hey, lets destroy as much of the enemy as we can." You quibble about how many pilots they lost. I pointed out that pilot loss was not their concern. You point out again pilot loss. Again I note it wasn't their concern

And again you are wrong. No pilots= no one to fly the planes and kill people. It doesn't matter what your resolve is if you have nothing left to throw at the enemy. Japan was trying to exhaust the US with casualties, but they were exhausting themselves much quicker. Most of the kamikaze pilots went into the sea without killing anyone- they would have been better off with conventional tactics. Again, given the huge loss of men and materiel, the results of the kamikaze missions over Okinawa were not worth the resources that went into it.

Do you think some of the Japanese tactics were rationalized by their cultural myths and superstitions? Enough effort and especially self sacrifice could win the favor of the Kami ( Japanese protective deities) for example

Even the term Kamikaze itself suggests this. In the 13th century an invading fleet was sunk by a Hurricane. The invasion itself was understood as divine retribution for religious heresies and predicted by one of their well known Priests ( Nichiren ). I think there is an element of magical thinking involved in the Japanese approach to making war.

It's hard to understand our tactics and military ethos even today if you are not familiar with our Civil War. I think some of their tactics have roots that are far different than ours...

« Last Edit: April 25, 2013, 11:32:27 AM by Marc1152 »

Logged

Your idea has been debunked 1000 times already.. Maybe 1001 will be the charm

I have dealt extensively with the Japanese...They are Borg.. Really.. They have a hive mentality. They are very much different than we are ( less so these days of course).They may as well be from another planet.

And there are other people who have dealt extensively with Japanese who will say you are wrong. From my own experience, I would agree with them.

The etiqueete is very much different.

Saving face is central to their ethos and is extreme. I have stories about how crazy they over this.

They have an exaggerated and extreme group mentality. They have little use for Western individualism. Your membership and enthusiastic participation is central to you life.

Their hierarchical structure has a totally different patten. .Many jobs expect you to stay at work until very late and then go get a drink..not optional. There is a problem in Japan with people dropping from exhaustion.

I had a good friend who worked in Japan for 10 years. He was very bitter about his experience. He said they will always be polite to you but they will never ever ever ever accept you.

My Buddhist teacher was an American and a professional translator of ancient Japanese Buddhists documents. Also bitter about his dealings with them. I was invited to go there several times by my group, all expenses paid ..which is very nice. But my American teacher told me they wanted to just "walk the dog"..They wanted to show off their American follower which helps to salve their feelings of inferiority to us.

oh and when you talk about WW2 with them you may discover that all they care about is Hiroshima. They make it sound like we started the War by dropping the bomb. Their consciousness begins and ends with them getting nuked.

Hey, better to be polite and not accept you than to be rude and ignorant and not accept you.

So, the Japanese have a different culture and different sensibilities. Not every culture can be as cool and accepting and warm and wonderful as "western" culture . This does not make them "Borg" (since they don't, apparently according to your friend, accept or assimilate others), it does not make them inhuman, and it is no reason to criticize, much less demonize them in any way, shape, or form.

Try to imagine how Americans might feel about WW2 if *we* had been nuked....twice. I guess we might be a little sensitive about it.

What seems clear to me from what you write is that you don't really understand Japanese culture at any deep level. Not that there's any need or reason for you to if you don't want to.

I, too, have a friend who spent many years in Japan, first to learn the language, and then ended up working there for quite a long time. Her experience, once she made the effort to learn about Japanese culture, etc, was totally different, in a very positive way, from what you and your friend describe. Which goes to show how careful we must be about making generalizations about whole cultures and peoples.

They are Borg because they have a Group Mentality..

They take no responsibility for WW2. All many of them are conscious of is Hiroshima, which was well justified IMHO.

Thanks for sharing your own opinions, which pretty much dehumanize a whole people and culture.

Thank God we have you stalking me and ready to put things right !

Keep standing up for what is right. Terrific job.. Thanks again

If replying to your posts in multiple threads or fora equals "stalking" you, or if you think I've violated any of the rules of this board, I invite you to report me to the mods and justify your accusation. Yes, I do attempt to stand up for what is right. Sorry that's a problem for you.

I honestly believe that you devote time to looking for any errors I make or exaggerations or hanging statements. You never miss an opportunity to take a shot.. That is not a violation of any forum rule. But you already know that I am sure.

If you can just back off an inch or two once in awhile I would appreciate it. That is not a demand just a request.

Actually, I do not devote my time to doing what you believe I do. With respect to this thread, I was reading it with great interest and then I came upon your comments. It was irrelevant to me who made the comments, and I would have replied in exactly the same manner had it been anyone other than you.

Contrary to what you think, I do not look for opportunities to "take a shot". You might consider, at least for a moment, that much of what you write, from the perspective that you write it, actually provokes some of my comments--not necessarily intentionally on your part, of course. You'll be pleasantly surprised to know that there is a great deal of what you write that I just am either not interested in or choose to ignore. And probably much that I don't even see.

If by backing off an inch or two once in a while you mean something to the effect of "please ignore or at least don't comment on what I write a little more", I'm certainly willing to do that. In fact, it would probably be quite beneficial for me as well as for you. We both seem to have a knack of being able to push each others buttons, so to speak, and provoke contention and ill feeling in one another. On the other hand, if you write something in a thread that I have interest in that is as outrageous (to me, anyway) as your comments about the Japanese people and culture were, then I probably will comment and you probably won't like it and you'll probably take it as me taking yet another "shot" at you. I can't help that, but do wish it were otherwise.

I hope and pray that's acceptable to you and we can leave it at that.

Logged

"May Thy Cross, O Lord, in which I seek refuge, be for me a bridge across the great river of fire. May I pass along it to the habitation of life." ~St. Ephraim the Syrian

They sank more ships. They were effective. Their goal was not "Hey, let's hang on to our pilots", but "Hey, lets destroy as much of the enemy as we can." You quibble about how many pilots they lost. I pointed out that pilot loss was not their concern. You point out again pilot loss. Again I note it wasn't their concern

And again you are wrong. No pilots= no one to fly the planes and kill people. It doesn't matter what your resolve is if you have nothing left to throw at the enemy. Japan was trying to exhaust the US with casualties, but they were exhausting themselves much quicker. Most of the kamikaze pilots went into the sea without killing anyone- they would have been better off with conventional tactics. Again, given the huge loss of men and materiel, the results of the kamikaze missions over Okinawa were not worth the resources that went into it.

Do you think some of the Japanese tactics were rationalized by their cultural myths and superstitions?

Sure they were. But the question is, were they actually effective? Not, did they make sense in line with a certain strain of Japanese religio-military thinking. And the admiration for these tactics was not ubiquitous. There were voices in the military saying, "This is not a sustainable or effective way of making war." General Kuribayashi at Iwo Jima certainly was of a different mindset, and, man for man, his defense produced the best casualty ratio for Japan of the war.

Logged

"A riddle or the cricket's cryIs to doubt a fit reply." - William Blake

I have dealt extensively with the Japanese...They are Borg.. Really.. They have a hive mentality. They are very much different than we are ( less so these days of course).They may as well be from another planet.

And there are other people who have dealt extensively with Japanese who will say you are wrong. From my own experience, I would agree with them.

The etiqueete is very much different.

Saving face is central to their ethos and is extreme. I have stories about how crazy they over this.

They have an exaggerated and extreme group mentality. They have little use for Western individualism. Your membership and enthusiastic participation is central to you life.

Their hierarchical structure has a totally different patten. .Many jobs expect you to stay at work until very late and then go get a drink..not optional. There is a problem in Japan with people dropping from exhaustion.

I had a good friend who worked in Japan for 10 years. He was very bitter about his experience. He said they will always be polite to you but they will never ever ever ever accept you.

My Buddhist teacher was an American and a professional translator of ancient Japanese Buddhists documents. Also bitter about his dealings with them. I was invited to go there several times by my group, all expenses paid ..which is very nice. But my American teacher told me they wanted to just "walk the dog"..They wanted to show off their American follower which helps to salve their feelings of inferiority to us.

oh and when you talk about WW2 with them you may discover that all they care about is Hiroshima. They make it sound like we started the War by dropping the bomb. Their consciousness begins and ends with them getting nuked.

Hey, better to be polite and not accept you than to be rude and ignorant and not accept you.

So, the Japanese have a different culture and different sensibilities. Not every culture can be as cool and accepting and warm and wonderful as "western" culture . This does not make them "Borg" (since they don't, apparently according to your friend, accept or assimilate others), it does not make them inhuman, and it is no reason to criticize, much less demonize them in any way, shape, or form.

Try to imagine how Americans might feel about WW2 if *we* had been nuked....twice. I guess we might be a little sensitive about it.

What seems clear to me from what you write is that you don't really understand Japanese culture at any deep level. Not that there's any need or reason for you to if you don't want to.

I, too, have a friend who spent many years in Japan, first to learn the language, and then ended up working there for quite a long time. Her experience, once she made the effort to learn about Japanese culture, etc, was totally different, in a very positive way, from what you and your friend describe. Which goes to show how careful we must be about making generalizations about whole cultures and peoples.

They are Borg because they have a Group Mentality..

They take no responsibility for WW2. All many of them are conscious of is Hiroshima, which was well justified IMHO.

Thanks for sharing your own opinions, which pretty much dehumanize a whole people and culture.

Thank God we have you stalking me and ready to put things right !

Keep standing up for what is right. Terrific job.. Thanks again

If replying to your posts in multiple threads or fora equals "stalking" you, or if you think I've violated any of the rules of this board, I invite you to report me to the mods and justify your accusation. Yes, I do attempt to stand up for what is right. Sorry that's a problem for you.

I honestly believe that you devote time to looking for any errors I make or exaggerations or hanging statements. You never miss an opportunity to take a shot.. That is not a violation of any forum rule. But you already know that I am sure.

If you can just back off an inch or two once in awhile I would appreciate it. That is not a demand just a request.

Actually, I do not devote my time to doing what you believe I do. With respect to this thread, I was reading it with great interest and then I came upon your comments. It was irrelevant to me who made the comments, and I would have replied in exactly the same manner had it been anyone other than you.

Contrary to what you think, I do not look for opportunities to "take a shot". You might consider, at least for a moment, that much of what you write, from the perspective that you write it, actually provokes some of my comments--not necessarily intentionally on your part, of course. You'll be pleasantly surprised to know that there is a great deal of what you write that I just am either not interested in or choose to ignore. And probably much that I don't even see.

If by backing off an inch or two once in a while you mean something to the effect of "please ignore or at least don't comment on what I write a little more", I'm certainly willing to do that. In fact, it would probably be quite beneficial for me as well as for you. We both seem to have a knack of being able to push each others buttons, so to speak, and provoke contention and ill feeling in one another. On the other hand, if you write something in a thread that I have interest in that is as outrageous (to me, anyway) as your comments about the Japanese people and culture were, then I probably will comment and you probably won't like it and you'll probably take it as me taking yet another "shot" at you. I can't help that, but do wish it were otherwise.

I hope and pray that's acceptable to you and we can leave it at that.

I believe your primary interest is to discredit me the best you can at every possible opportunity without exception. You are always ready to pounce..

You are becoming obsessive. I even had to block your private messages to me. Your list of demands and do's and donts in order to coexist with me was very agressive.

Prove me wrong with action and back off a bit..

Thanks

« Last Edit: April 25, 2013, 02:58:51 PM by Marc1152 »

Logged

Your idea has been debunked 1000 times already.. Maybe 1001 will be the charm

They were effective insofar as they destroyed more of their enemy - which is the goal in war.

Go tell that to Pyrrhus.

I've already dealt with that. Pyrrhus was not about wasting his own men. Japan and, Vietnam were.

You keep applying western-values and judging the enemy's plans by your values... which as I noted, is why the US lost in Vietnam. They were utterly convinced that they were winning by measuring body-counts.

It seems your posts are simply to keep repeating endlessly your own western values. It's why the US might well lose again if you can't learn from your mistakes.

I think Kerdy is on the right track, though. One of the universal concepts of war is that a tactic must have a high Return on Investment - ROI. Basically, you have to put in less of whatever resource you are using than you destroy of the enemy. This is more qualitative than quantitative. The resources are valued at what you and your enemies put into it.

In Vietnam, the US valued the lives of it's people more than the Vietnamese did. This is not a moral statement but one of policy. The Vietnamese Communists - PAVN, VC, and the Viet Minh before them - all had been fighting wars of attrition. They had the manpower and they also had the will to fight in this manner - accepting losses of 10 Vietnamese to every dead American. The manpower is less of an issue. The US had far more men they could throw into the fight. The problem was, the American people did not have the willpower to accept these kinds of losses. The North Vietnamese were at a severely bad spot after the Tet Offensive. But with the support of General Ho Chi Brokaw, they were able to sap the will of the American people to fight.

Keep in mind, that from Industrial War on, it has not been a contest of armies but rather of populations. This was the same in WWII as well, though with the advent of Maneuver Warfare the armies began having better options, but it was still a matter of American and Soviet grinding that won rather than German maneuvers and Japanese martial spirit.

So with your example of the terror bombings - the US killed swathes of Japanese with their bombs but still had not broken their will to fight. What we did was, we broke their ability to build quality materials of war. They were building Arisakas in their basements for Rommel's sake! The Japanese had the will to lose 10 men for every dead American. Fine. If they don't even have the equipment to facilitate killing that one when we have artillery, tanks, ships, fighter-bombers, and all the other fun war-toys to kill 20 of theirs, their will becomes inconsequential. They had the strength of will and the dedications to fly their planes into our ships. Fine. For starts, they didn't really do all that much damage to the ships they hit, and when they did, there were three or four more behind that one. All the while they were done yet another pilot and yet another plane and our firebombs were making it so that while they could replace the pilot they could not replace the plane. And every Zero that became a flaming grease spot on the deck of a USN destroyer was not a pilot defending the skies over Japan, protecting their fleet, or protecting their torpedo bombers which actually would have had a chance at sinking our ships.

Basically, the Japanese were willing to pay the price, but we were able to absorb their expenditure and still be on top. The ROI of banzai charges and kamikazi attacks was too high to be effective.

They were effective insofar as they destroyed more of their enemy - which is the goal in war.

Go tell that to Pyrrhus.

I've already dealt with that. Pyrrhus was not about wasting his own men. Japan and, Vietnam were.

You keep applying western-values and judging the enemy's plans by your values... which as I noted, is why the US lost in Vietnam. They were utterly convinced that they were winning by measuring body-counts.

It seems your posts are simply to keep repeating endlessly your own western values. It's why the US might well lose again if you can't learn from your mistakes.

I think Kerdy is on the right track, though. One of the universal concepts of war is that a tactic must have a high Return on Investment - ROI. Basically, you have to put in less of whatever resource you are using than you destroy of the enemy. This is more qualitative than quantitative. The resources are valued at what you and your enemies put into it.

In Vietnam, the US valued the lives of it's people more than the Vietnamese did. This is not a moral statement but one of policy. The Vietnamese Communists - PAVN, VC, and the Viet Minh before them - all had been fighting wars of attrition. They had the manpower and they also had the will to fight in this manner - accepting losses of 10 Vietnamese to every dead American. The manpower is less of an issue. The US had far more men they could throw into the fight. The problem was, the American people did not have the willpower to accept these kinds of losses. The North Vietnamese were at a severely bad spot after the Tet Offensive. But with the support of General Ho Chi Brokaw, they were able to sap the will of the American people to fight.

Keep in mind, that from Industrial War on, it has not been a contest of armies but rather of populations. This was the same in WWII as well, though with the advent of Maneuver Warfare the armies began having better options, but it was still a matter of American and Soviet grinding that won rather than German maneuvers and Japanese martial spirit.

So with your example of the terror bombings - the US killed swathes of Japanese with their bombs but still had not broken their will to fight. What we did was, we broke their ability to build quality materials of war. They were building Arisakas in their basements for Rommel's sake! The Japanese had the will to lose 10 men for every dead American. Fine. If they don't even have the equipment to facilitate killing that one when we have artillery, tanks, ships, fighter-bombers, and all the other fun war-toys to kill 20 of theirs, their will becomes inconsequential. They had the strength of will and the dedications to fly their planes into our ships. Fine. For starts, they didn't really do all that much damage to the ships they hit, and when they did, there were three or four more behind that one. All the while they were done yet another pilot and yet another plane and our firebombs were making it so that while they could replace the pilot they could not replace the plane. And every Zero that became a flaming grease spot on the deck of a USN destroyer was not a pilot defending the skies over Japan, protecting their fleet, or protecting their torpedo bombers which actually would have had a chance at sinking our ships.

Basically, the Japanese were willing to pay the price, but we were able to absorb their expenditure and still be on top. The ROI of banzai charges and kamikazi attacks was too high to be effective.

The Japanese were already planning (within their means) at repelling the expected invasion, including to the point of giving people sharpened bamboo poles... according to the book "Operation Downfall"

The entire population would become 'the army'.

They would have kept fighting, regardless of not having the 'industrial' capacity to do so.

So your rebuttal still does not take that into account

You are basing your assessment on the effectiveness of kamazai attacks on the wrong criteria

Japanese naval superiority was largely a function of (a) surprise and (b) the Germans forcing part of the US fleet to stay in the Atlantic. At the beginning of the war, the US and Japanese had rough parity in naval forces (the Japs had more carriers, but only a few of them were comparable to the American bird farms), and if the Americans had been paying attention at Pearl, Yamomoto's forces would have gotten pretty beat up. As soon as the Americans started to respond, the Japanese started to lose at sea.

On land, the Japanese advantage basically consisted of being in dug in defensive positions on a series of volcanic islands. You can call it "tough", or you can call it stupidity. They were never a significant offensive force against a well-equipped enemy.

Japanese had superior tactics, and one of the best fighters at that time (best, when confronting antiquated tactics; of getting into a dog-fight with the Zero)

Claire Chennault had, for the Flying Tigers a better set of aerial tactics using the same 'average performance' plane; the Kittyhawk.

I knew someone who was a member of the 2nd AIF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_AIF) who told me that before Japan entered the war he and other Aussies were trained to believe that the Japanese were inherently inferiror; all being short, all with 'slitty eyes' that meant that they couldn't fly planes properly, etc.)

They were effective insofar as they destroyed more of their enemy - which is the goal in war.

Go tell that to Pyrrhus.

I've already dealt with that. Pyrrhus was not about wasting his own men. Japan and, Vietnam were.

You keep applying western-values and judging the enemy's plans by your values... which as I noted, is why the US lost in Vietnam. They were utterly convinced that they were winning by measuring body-counts.

It seems your posts are simply to keep repeating endlessly your own western values. It's why the US might well lose again if you can't learn from your mistakes.

I think Kerdy is on the right track, though. One of the universal concepts of war is that a tactic must have a high Return on Investment - ROI. Basically, you have to put in less of whatever resource you are using than you destroy of the enemy. This is more qualitative than quantitative. The resources are valued at what you and your enemies put into it.

In Vietnam, the US valued the lives of it's people more than the Vietnamese did. This is not a moral statement but one of policy. The Vietnamese Communists - PAVN, VC, and the Viet Minh before them - all had been fighting wars of attrition. They had the manpower and they also had the will to fight in this manner - accepting losses of 10 Vietnamese to every dead American. The manpower is less of an issue. The US had far more men they could throw into the fight. The problem was, the American people did not have the willpower to accept these kinds of losses. The North Vietnamese were at a severely bad spot after the Tet Offensive. But with the support of General Ho Chi Brokaw, they were able to sap the will of the American people to fight.

Keep in mind, that from Industrial War on, it has not been a contest of armies but rather of populations. This was the same in WWII as well, though with the advent of Maneuver Warfare the armies began having better options, but it was still a matter of American and Soviet grinding that won rather than German maneuvers and Japanese martial spirit.

So with your example of the terror bombings - the US killed swathes of Japanese with their bombs but still had not broken their will to fight. What we did was, we broke their ability to build quality materials of war. They were building Arisakas in their basements for Rommel's sake! The Japanese had the will to lose 10 men for every dead American. Fine. If they don't even have the equipment to facilitate killing that one when we have artillery, tanks, ships, fighter-bombers, and all the other fun war-toys to kill 20 of theirs, their will becomes inconsequential. They had the strength of will and the dedications to fly their planes into our ships. Fine. For starts, they didn't really do all that much damage to the ships they hit, and when they did, there were three or four more behind that one. All the while they were done yet another pilot and yet another plane and our firebombs were making it so that while they could replace the pilot they could not replace the plane. And every Zero that became a flaming grease spot on the deck of a USN destroyer was not a pilot defending the skies over Japan, protecting their fleet, or protecting their torpedo bombers which actually would have had a chance at sinking our ships.

Basically, the Japanese were willing to pay the price, but we were able to absorb their expenditure and still be on top. The ROI of banzai charges and kamikazi attacks was too high to be effective.

The Japanese were already planning (within their means) at repelling the expected invasion, including to the point of giving people sharpened bamboo poles... according to the book "Operation Downfall"

The entire population would become 'the army'.

They would have kept fighting, regardless of not having the 'industrial' capacity to do so.

So your rebuttal still does not take that into account

You are basing your assessment on the effectiveness of kamazai attacks on the wrong criteria

But you aren't getting my point. What is the trade off? How effective would those sharpened sticks have been? They could throw wave after wave at us and so long as we were still willing to kill them, they'd run out of people eventually. We had the will to put a plan into effect that could have cost us the lives of half a million Americans. By that point I bet we could have pretty much eradicated the Japanese people from the face of the planet.

And what we didn't kill the Russians would have.

And it didn't really matter because now we are getting into real history rather than what-if's. The Emperor was tired of seeing his people die needlessly. We just needed to give him a good reason to surrender. Hiroshima and Nagasaki later, he did. With the Emporer went the people.

So what I am saying about kamikazis is, they didn't affect the US. They probably helped in bringing the war to a quicker conclusion with fewer Americans dead. Even if the Japanese didn't mind the loss, nor did we! And they lost more irreplaceable material than we did.

This whole argument started with someone claiming that the kamikaze attacks were an effective tactic (clearly they weren't) and that Japan might have gotten better results by employing such tactics at the beginning of the war (actually it would have hastened their defeat.)

Logged

"A riddle or the cricket's cryIs to doubt a fit reply." - William Blake

You can resolve to smash a brick wall down with your forehead. My money is on your head popping first. Likewise, I'll bet the Japanese would tire of getting killed long before we tired of killing them.

You can resolve to smash a brick wall down with your forehead. My money is on your head popping first. Likewise, I'll bet the Japanese would tire of getting killed long before we tired of killing them.

You can resolve to smash a brick wall down with your forehead. My money is on your head popping first. Likewise, I'll bet the Japanese would tire of getting killed long before we tired of killing them.

Japanese naval superiority was largely a function of (a) surprise and (b) the Germans forcing part of the US fleet to stay in the Atlantic. At the beginning of the war, the US and Japanese had rough parity in naval forces (the Japs had more carriers, but only a few of them were comparable to the American bird farms), and if the Americans had been paying attention at Pearl, Yamomoto's forces would have gotten pretty beat up. As soon as the Americans started to respond, the Japanese started to lose at sea.

On land, the Japanese advantage basically consisted of being in dug in defensive positions on a series of volcanic islands. You can call it "tough", or you can call it stupidity. They were never a significant offensive force against a well-equipped enemy.

America used F2A-3 in WWII. This was a heavier version of the F2A-1 which was used so effectively in Findland against Soviet airforce. Problem at Midway was mostly the operational inexperience of US aircrews. The F2A-3 thus served as a sort of scapegoat for lack of experience of American Pilots. This was displayed by most of the American air units participating in battle, with the exception of the carrier Yorktown and some elements of Enterprise. F4F-3 and F4F-4, as well as P-40 series were effective in holding the line until newer types began arriving in 1943, once the pilots figured out how to fight with them. It think in the beginning it was more a matter of marginal pilot skill (compared to Japanese) than marginal airplanes. I think, the biggest disparity in equipment quality was in the torpedoes. The Japanese torpedos were much better designed and the American torpedoes frankly sucked. As for the torpedo bombers, the Nakijima B5N was best in the world at this time, and the TBD was badly outclassed in comparison, but even the better designed TBF came up short at Midway. This was mostly because of air operational failure, poorly trained aircrews (most of VT-8 never even launched a torpedo in training before taking on the Nihon Kaigun), and sucky torpedoes, rather than aircraft failure. TBD did well enough at Coral Sea attacking Shoho and I don't think a TBF ever a sank ship with a torpedo. Of course what does it say about all of us Orthocks, that we have so many informed opinions about Pacific War?

Brewster Buffalos also performed poorly in Malaya when used by British and Australian forces.

Yup. The British used the export version of the same F2A-3 that the Marines were stuck with in Midway. Just like the Marines, the British airmen, mostly from Australia and New Zealand were inexperienced in combat air operations. In addition, their version was even more underpowered with refurbished Wasp radials from DC-3 airliners. These radials had a problem with oil leaks, which was aggravated by the tropical operating condtitions. The British lost many Brewsters to accidents, poor maintenance and ground Japanese ground attacks.

In the East Indies, the Brewsters were slightly different from what the British were using, the Dutch version was slightly lighter and was equiped with better WASP engines. The biggest problem faced by the Dutch was that they were heavily outnumbered in the Japanese onslaught. They were however, more successful than the British in their air operations, and even used the Brewster with some success as a dive bomber against Japanese troopships, before they were finally overwhelmed by superior numbers.

A great account of both British and Dutch air operations in Malaysia, Burma and the East Indies is volume one of the three volume A Bloody Shambles series, which describes just how unprepared those forces were in fighting the Japanese.

In contrast to American, Dutch and British experiences, the Finns were altogether successful with their Brewsters. Like the British and Dutch, the Finns also used a de-navalized version of the F2A, but theirs was the F2A-1 model which initially was lighter, but then they added armor plate and four 12.7 mm M/G which reduced the Finnish model's performance, so that it was actually slower than the F2B-3 version used by the Brits and Dutch. The Finns also had the same problem with oil leaks from the refurbished WASPs, but they solved it by inverting one of the cylinder rings in each cylinder. I have no idea why this worked, but it apparently did and maybe the arctic operating conditions helped also. More importantly, the Finns benefited from the mistakes of others and figured how to fight the Brewster to its best advantage, by making slashing dive attacks on Soviet bombers using the heavy M/G to rip the Soviet aircraft apart. They also took advantage of the Buff's long range (the Buff had a wet wing and had an range comparable to a A6M2), and consequent fight endurance to loiter and make repeated attacks on Soviet formations. Finally, one cannot overstate the contribution to Finnish succes by the poor aircrew quality and inept air operations of the Soviet airforce, whose most experienced members were exterminated during Stalin's purges. Consequently, In Finnish hands the Brewster achieved a kill ratio of 26:1, ironically making the type both one of the worst and yet one of most most successful types deployed in WWII. Trivia: One Brewster airframe in Finnish service alone accounted for over forty confirmed kills at the hands of its various pilots, making it the single highest scoring fighter airframe so far in aviation history. Finnish Brewsters were finally scrapped in 1953.

**Other countries that purchased Brewster in WII were the French and Belgians. Oddly enough the USAAF took advantage of the Buffalo's long range to operate the type as a photo recon aircraft from Australia early in 1942.